


IX. They Come At Night

by notablyindigo



Series: The Better Half [9]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Children, Multi, Other, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notablyindigo/pseuds/notablyindigo





	IX. They Come At Night

Joan is at Hope’s second baby shower when she realizes that she’s never talked about kids with anyone. 

Not with anyone she’s dated, anyway. Sure, there had been idle conversations with friends in college, and even in med school, about how many they’d want, preferred gender, even ideas for names. Joan had always thought that “Isaiah Watson” had a nice ring to it, had even told her mother as much, to the predictable universal response that she’d be hard-pressed to find a man who’d take her name instead of the traditional inverse (sometimes she tries on her birth name—Joan Luh—on for size, but she’s a Watson of Scarsdale through and through and can’t imagine being anything else). 

It isn’t that she doesn’t want kids—she’s pretty sure she does—, and it’s not that she hasn’t been serious enough with anyone for the subject to come up; she’d lived with Jerry for two years, and had been practically engaged to Ty. Would’ve married him if he’d found the time to ask. But somehow the subject had simply never come up. 

Or, she tries to believe it’s that innocuous, because the alternative is one she finds disturbing. She was a good doctor, a good sober companion. She’s shaping up to be a pretty good detective. Given the chance, she thinks she’d be a good mom, too, but the thought of soliciting anyone else’s opinion on the matter makes her stomach roll. Joan can’t help but view it as a portent of doom when her mother abandons the classic refrain of asking when she’s going to settle down and provide some long-awaited grandchildren. Is she so far-gone? 

The fecundity of the rest of the guest list is overwhelming. Joan glances around the room, which is swathed in the requisite pastel taffeta and streamers, and notes that every other woman present is responsible for one of the tiny humans tearing around in the yard. Or pregnant. Or both. Certainly they’re all married, though Joan’s long since stopped feeling insecure over that, having noted her parents’ example and decided that marriage is as likely to bring misery as it is to bring happiness. Mediocre dates facilitated by meddlesome friends or the friendly algorithms at True Romantix aside, Joan is fine with the idea of being single. Stag. Alone. Whatever, it doesn’t really matter that much to her. Her partnership with Sherlock is the best relationship she’s been in in years, and even that oscillates dizzyingly between hyper- and dys-functionality. 

But she’s found her thoughts turning with ever-increasing frequency toward being a parent. Maybe it’s because Hope, and a whole host of other friends and acquaintances, are pregnant. Maybe it’s some kind of perverse biological clock, finally beginning to tick when she’s in no sort of position to acquiesce to its demands. Whatever the reason, she’s come to realize that this is something she wants. Perhaps not now, but soon. 

Hope correctly guesses the flavor of the baby food smeared onto the diaper on the table in front of her (stawberry mango papaya—since when was Gerber so fancy?) and calls for a break in the games so she can use the bathroom (“Kid’s doing the goddamn can-can on my bladder,” she mutters as she shuffles past Joan). The guests mill around and chat, pausing by the food tables in their slow, casual circuits about the room. One of Hope’s work friends—Jennifer? Jessica? Janet? Something with a J—comes by with a tray of something.

"Champagne?" she asks, offering Joan a half-full plastic flute of pink-tinted bubbly. Joan glances at the clock. She’ll be getting behind the wheel soon.

"No, thanks," she says. "Not for me." The woman, whatever her name is, smiles knowingly.

"When’re you due?" she asks, and Joan physically jolts from the shock of the question, upsetting the small plate of snacks she’d been holding. 

"I’m not pregnant, I’m just driving later," Joan says, crouching down to pick up her spilled nibbles. What’s-her-name looks appropriately embarrassed, and puts down the tray to help Joan tidy up. 

"Sorry, I just assumed," she says. "Here, let me take your plate—"

"It’s okay," Joan says. "I’ll toss it out myself. I need to get going anyway." 

She finds Hope and Ken and says her goodbyes, then sees herself out. 

\- - -

When she gets back to the brownstone, Sherlock is setting fire to something that is decidedly not firewood. He looks up as she enters, and removes his goggles.

"You’re back early," he says mildly, gauging her mood. Joan tosses her bag on the couch and drops into one of the armchairs by the fireplace. "Something go awry at your friend’s procreation celebration, hm? Did someone best you at Baby Bingo?" Joan snorts and tells him the story. 

"I mean it’s not like I’m mad that she assumed but…I don’t know, it was just awkward, I guess. Being the only non-parent there." Sherlock studies her for a long moment before turning back to the fireplace grate. 

"Parenting is, of course, vastly overrated," he says, busying himself with the burning thing—document? effigy? human femur? "Much of the present theory of development suggests that nature imparts as much if not more than nurture, of which parenting is only a fraction." He douses the fire with the liquid contents of a large beaker he’s left sitting on the hearth. The flames roar up the chimney for a moment, then extinguish with a hiss. 

Sherlock dusts his hands on his trousers, and turns to look at Joan. “Still, for whatever it’s worth,” he says, “I think you’d be a more than adequate parent.”

Joan waits for the penny to drop (“Do you believe in love at first sight?” and “The drugs I took lit up my brain”), but then there’s the ‘ding’ of an egg timer in the next room, at which Sherlock leaps to his feet, grabs the (formerly) burning thing out of the grate with a pair of tongs, and makes for the stairs leading to the upper floors. There is no punchline. Joan blinks, surprised. 

"Where are you going?" she calls after him, craning her neck to watch him bound up the steps.

"Experiment," he shouts, voice dwindling as he climbs. Joan shakes her head, smiling somewhat. 

Sometimes affirmation comes from the strangest of places.


End file.
